Horse patrol unit helps West Texas

Published 7:00 pm, Friday, April 30, 2010

They're used for everything from search and rescue missions to dignitary protection and crowd control at local events and concerts.

For the past four years, nine area agencies have sent volunteers and officers to be a part of the Midland County Sheriff's Office Mounted Patrol.

Riding on horseback, the group has helped as far away as with the Pecos prison riots and the Presidio flooding to locally when former President George W. Bush came home to Midland in January 2009 and during a controversial Ku Klux Klan rally on the Midland County Courthouse steps.

And they're used more when trying to search a large area for a fugitive, missing or deceased person or people.

"They see so much more. A horse will actually sense there's a body or a live person. They'll notice a jackrabbit before a human ever does and alert the rider before they ever get there," Commander Alan Thompson, a Midland County Sheriff's Office sergeant, said.

Once a month, the group of 45 gather to train their animals by running the horses through obstacle courses and smoke and shooting confetti in their paths to try to desensitize them.

Thompson said the unit trains the horses in anything that they may come in contact with when out working an event or crime scene.

Twice a year, the group also holds night training classes to work the animals in the dark through obstacle courses.

Horses must qualify twice a year also to be certified in the program, officials said.

The MCSO Mounted Patrol is the only unit in West Texas and one of the few in the state. There are only four certified instructors across the state of Texas and two of the instructors — Thompson being one of them — are in Midland County.

In 2000, the patrol unit disbanded from a lack of interest and participants. In 2006, authorities asked Thompson to participate in helping to get it started.

"It might not be needed too often, but when you need it, you need it bad," he said.

All those involved — including sheriff's deputies, police officers and civilians — volunteer their time and resources to be a part of the patrol unit and use their own horses, officials said.

Participants keep their animals at home with them, and when they get called out, they transport their own animals to where they are needed and pay for their own transportation costs.

"The benefit is for the community itself. It doesn't cost taxpayers anything. We're paid for by fundraisers," Thompson said.

And when they re-started the unit four years ago, they had about 10 people interested in participating. Now, those numbers have more than quadrupled with the unit reaching its maximum capacity with those 45 involved, making them the largest mounted patrol unit in Texas.

And Thompson feels confident that with all the training those in the group have received, they can address any issue that may arise.

"We can handle just about any situation that comes down the road," he said.